Brown bud colour does not seem strange at all when we take a look at e.g. "You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view., 67, 599, 612, 663, 666 pp.". It appears praun was in use if not synonymously, so at least adjacent to purple.
Dictamnus is described with purple buds that fall off to leave hop-like doldes which turn reddish-brown when the plant is ripe. In case you ever tasted Cretan mountain tea you will know the aroma. Alas, still a much requested medicinal herb, it is on the red list of endangered species. There is a neat drawing of a wounded goat eating from dictamnus, thus to make the hunter's arrow drop out of the wound immediately You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.. The diptamnos depiction in Bertoliana MS 362 seems to belong to the "good ones", being rather botanically close, as much as the recipes are to be handled with care.
In my opinion it correctly reads "praunen", as referenced in "You are not allowed to view links.
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If we are looking at
german abbreviations adopted from latin scribal practice, they expand differently from latin abbreviations. Taking a closer look at the diptam folio on Marco's page, the transcription could also be "pran(flourish)", the last character being "n flourish" (see You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.) with the bow pulled at where the u has been omitted (abbreviation by contraction).
Most of the times n-flourish can be rendered as "-en" or "-nen". So in my opinion an alternate reading of the colour names goes:
- praunen (referring to a purple tone)
- gruen (see ref. 1)
- gel (ditto)
This & other circumstances beyound the colouring topic give room to the possibility that the 3 german words do not represent colouring hints for a (later) painter but serve a different function in this case.
Unlike decently placed, single-letter colour codes like the "r" above the assumed seed head, these appear as full-word, prominently positioned label-like additions, almost full-size and even come in 3 different colours (although out of reference, note the numbers in the BL paper mentioned above in this regard).
If these are ment to be seen and read, we could also think about the intended audience as being german and the purpose something different from a practice book of questionable quality, but rather as a luxury or novelty item for the status-conscious civil client, as suggested by C. Jakobi-Mirwald ("Das mittelalterliche Buch - Funktion und Ausstattung", 92 pp.), and other german palæographic sources.
A larger perspective on the iconographic traditions of herbal plant depiction suggests that except in rare cases, colour information was regarded secondary for the purpose of plant identification by a professional, who should be able to interpret colouring hints, if necessary. The herbals of our interest are out of this scope, but were mostly "copied together" from similar sources - of varying quality - which offers intriguing possibilities of source-identification.
Furthermore it seems that an "editor" of a "compilation" of such nature could not have been certain that the colouring information had been copied correctly from the source in the first place, neither if it would be adhered to lateron, nor if colouring would take place at all.
Colour would seem differently important for a layman (or trader to) of foreign language, requiring verification of authenticity for some of the exotic & expensive herbal items which were actually available for purchase, tellingly through the same routes the "catalogue" originated from. Northern italy and mainly venice are mentioned in later, printed german herbal books, thus unmasking a possible secondary purpose of a kind of "PR & Sales" type, especially in the case of this diptamno "advertisment".
To close this post on colour, it seems interesting to note that no colouring hint exists on the diptam folio that told some painter to accentuate the roots and the snake in brown, which cares for a slight 3D effect, if you will.
The provenance of some herbal exemplars tells us that they have been "enhanced", emenated & repainted up to the 19th century.
There are many more interesting traits to be followed, which I feel would be safe in the "herbal classification thread", which I would like to add to when I find the time. Also there are some more references to be added here, later.